


Beautiful

by delboyanddier



Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: Friends to Lovers, M/M, Tags will also be updated as I write, youtuber au!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-10 05:34:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19900636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delboyanddier/pseuds/delboyanddier
Summary: “Its ya boy JLingz, back with another video.” Jesse beams at the camera, cherry lip gloss sparkling. Like in every other video intro, Jesse does his signature hand gesture, the one where he puts his hands together, fingers shaped like a “J” and an “L”.“JLingz and?” Marcus raises his eyebrows at Jesse and crosses his arms in faux annoyance. Jesse smiles slightly, knowingly, like he always does when Marcus plays up their banter for the camera.  “Am I not even here, Jess?”Or:Marcus falls in love with best friend, YouTube sensation, and beauty guru Jesse Lingard.





	Beautiful

Jesse looks beautiful today, as usual. For one thing, his make-up is perfect—as Jesse leans over the camera on the vanity, fairy lights illuminate his golden highlight, and his butterfly lashes cast shadows that flutter across his face. Like in every video, Jesse looks stylish, with his Gucci t-shirt tight across his biceps, tucked into red slacks that somehow bring out the Manchester United tapestry on the wall behind them.

But it's more than his clothes, his pretty face—it's Jesse’s brilliant smile. His radiant aura. Jesse’s subscribers keep asking how he gets that glow. How does his skin care routine make him look like _that_? But Marcus knows that’s just how his best friend is—Jesse just radiates life, positivity, and pure happiness. 

“Yo, earth to Marcus?” Jesse waves his hand in the mirror, meeting Marcus’s eyes in it. “You ready to film?” 

Marcus snaps out of his trance. Damn, he really has to stop doing that. Jesse adjusts the tripod on the glossy white vanity in front of them, then plops down on the bed beside Marcus.

“Yeah, yeah. Lets get this over with.” Marcus rolls his eyes playfully. Jesse turns toward him, clutching his chest with exaggerated pain.

“Wow, shit best friend, you are. I’m starting then.” Jesse leans forward, hits the record button, and just like that the two of them are about to share their lives with millions of people across the world.

“Its ya boy JLingz, back with another video.” Jesse beams at the camera, cherry lip gloss sparkling. Like in every other video intro, Jesse does his signature hand gesture, the one where he puts his hands together, fingers shaped like a “J” and an “L”. 

“JLingz and?” Marcus raises his eyebrows at Jesse and crosses his arms in faux annoyance. Jesse smiles slightly, knowingly, like he always does when Marcus plays up their banter for the camera. “Am I not even here, Jess?” 

“Oh, right. As you may have noticed,” Jesse wiggles his eyebrows at the camera, “We’re not doing makeup today _and_ we have a special guest here.” Jesse slings an arm around Marcus and a wave of vanilla body wash tickles Marcus’s nose. It makes Marcus want to lean into the touch despite himself.

“Those of you who have been apart of the JLingz family know this is my best mate and roomie, Marcus. We go way back. Like, _waayyyy_ back. So we’re gonna see how well we know each other by doing the...” Jesse looks expectantly at Marcus.

“The best friend tag. So why am I here again?” Marcus forces himself to say it with a straight face, but disintegrates into giggles when Jesse rolls his eyes.

“Wow, thanks, Beans. Why did I invite ya to do this, again?” Jesse shakes his head, amused. He removes his arm from around Marcus’s shoulder and Marcus can’t help but deflate a little on the inside. 

“You love how I edit your videos, so you only pretended to be my best mate this whole time.”

“Nah but seriously? It's been too long since you’ve been in a video, man.” 

“Yeah, a whole three weeks.” Marcus teases, then adds. “Glad to be back though, guys.”

“Of course you are, you love my company. But anyway. The best friend tag. Let’s get into it.” Jesse gesticulates emphatically. He takes a few minutes to explain the premise of the best friend tag; he and Marcus will ask each other questions submitted by Jesse’s viewers. Whoever gets the most questions right—Jesse, of course, insists he will get _way_ more right than Marcus—knows the other person better.

After explaining the best friend tag, Jesse dives right in, starting them off with some pretty safe questions, to Marcus’s relief, and they jump from favorite foods to favorite football teams to where they first met. Marcus correctly guesses Jesse’s favorite food: fried rice, especially from the small, family-owned Chinese place a few blocks from their flat. Jesse rolls his eyes at the question about Marcus’s favorite football teams – “easy, that” – because its no secret they both worship Manchester United and England (in fact, they usually rant about both in Jesse’s videos.)

Where did they first meet? Marcus answers that easily, too. They met in the Manchester United Academy, where they played footie as kids. But they really become close when they reconnected during Marcus’s undergraduate years in college.

So far, the questions have been good. Marcus feels like they’re on a roll; the answers keep coming easily, no question too awkward, difficult, or venturing into dangerous territory.

But of course, with Jesse’s viewers, the safe questions only last so long.

“What does Marcus think is his sexiest feature?” Jesse reads from his iPhone. He pauses, bites his lip. “Geez, that’s a hard one, that.” 

“Oh, I know! Your smile. He likes his smile. You have great abs, too, to be fair. And your thighs! They’re so muscular and fit and—"

“They knew you would do this. They knew you would catalog all my body parts on the Internet.” Marcus groans from behind his hands, feeling very self-conscious and painfully turned on. _Jesse said my thighs and abs were sexy,_ Marcus thinks. His face is going to burst into flames. 

“I have some dirty-minded fans, you know. They knew what they were doing with that question." Jesse smiles slightly and shakes his head, amused. "It’s like they want us to fuck on cam’ra or something.” Then his eyes sparkle, like they always do when he gets a bad idea and Marcus wants to clap his hand over Jesse’s mouth in advance—

“So tune in to our next video, yeah?” Jesse winks at the camera, then looks at Marcus, grinning like a devil. 

“Oh my days, you did _not_.” Marcus lunges at Jesse and tackles him onto the bed. Jesse squeals, tries to shove off Marcus because he knows the torture that’s coming. But it's no use - Marcus tickles up and down Jesse’s abdomen, hands flying, reducing Jesse to an eruption of laughter and gasps for air. 

“You did not just say that!” Marcus throws a leg over Jesse, hands attacking his arm pits and the back of his neck.

“No, Beans! Please, please!” Jesse gasps out between giggles. Marcus tries to not think about how Jesse is screaming the word _please_ while between his legs. “Can’t breathe. I can’t breathe, mate.” Jesse flails more on the bed, desperately trying to dodge the tickle attacks of the man looming above him. Marcus decides he’s had enough punishment—for now—and sits up a little, giving Jesse some space.

“You know,” Jesse looks up and down at Marcus straddled above him, then smacks a hand on his muscular thigh, “We might just fuck on cam’ra today, if ya keep this up—”

“I hate you! I fucking hate you!” Marcus screams in horror, slipping his fingers under Jesse’s Gucci t-shirt and resuming the tickle attack. “Worst. Best. Mate. Ever.” Marcus punctuates each word with a poke to Jesse’s stomach and sides.

“Sign off! Sign off first!” Jesse wheezes as he hits the arm that’s torturing him. Tears pool up under his huge butterfly lashes and his chest must hurt, he’s laughing so much. “Sign off before we get too carried away.” Jesse wiggles his eyebrows at Marcus, licking his full, glossy lower lip and suddenly the whole thing is too much for Marcus—Jesse looking at him suggestively, Jesse _underneath_ him. Jesse with his shirt halfway up and Marcus with his hand splayed across those warm, firm abs. 

The whole Jesse thing, as usual, is fucking overwhelming Marcus and making him pop a semi. _On camera_ , no less. Not that this is the first time it's happened while filming. Jesse Lingard—stupid and stupidly attractive Jesse Lingard—always arouses Marcus with his flirtatious banter, which Marcus has to remind himself isn’t real (even if he wants it to be).

So Marcus sighs down at Jesse, who’s still smirking, and decides to handle this situation the mature way.

He grabs a pillow on the bed and smothers Jesse’s face with it. 

“Thanks for watching, everyone—” 

“My full-face! You’re ruining my make-up—” Jesse yelps, muffled behind the pillow.

Marcus squashes the pillow down harder.

“Please like and subscribe if you enjoyed the video I made with this dumbass—I know I didn’t.” Marcus raises his voice at the last part and glares at Jesse, even though he can’t see Marcus, what with being suffocated by a pillow. 

“Alright, cheers then.” Still smothering Jesse’s face with one hand, Marcus reaches with the other and turns off the camera. The red recording light dims off and Marcus sighs in relief. 

But the relief is short-lived. Because Marcus realizes he has to watch that footage, that footage of them wrestling, laughing, and screaming, while he edits tonight. Marcus wants to scream in frustration because he will definitely be frustrated in _some kind of way_ when he watches that over and over again. Fuck, did the camera catch Marcus’s hard-on while they were filming? Marcus can do a lot of things with iMovie but even he can’t edit out a boner—

Something plush whacks Marcus in the face and a strong hand pushes him down onto the mattress. When Jesse pulls the pillow away, he’s grinning like a maniac and Marcus internally curses himself for getting lost in thought. For letting Jesse get the upper hand.

Jesse is lifting the pillow above his head, about to bring it down and slam it into Marcus’s face again, when Marcus realizes something.

“You were right, Jess.” Marcus says calmly, taking in the other man’s smudged mascara and the cherry blur around those perfect heart-shaped lips.

“Whah?” Jesse quirks an eyebrow at him, arms momentarily going slack, pillow assault forgotten.

“I totally ruined your make-up.” Marcus smirks slightly. He doesn’t regret saying it for a moment—even when Jesse starts bashing in his face with the pillow once more.

“You bastard! This full-face took me _two_ hours. Fuck you!” Jesse roars. Pillow meets face again and again, and now its Marcus’s turn to disintegrate into a fit of giggles.

“Alright, alright! ‘M sorry, okay.” Marcus cries out from below Jesse, who has his pillow poised for another smack to the face. Jesse studies Marcus for a moment, silently debating if he’s dealt enough punishment. Then, for what must be the hundredth time that evening, Jesse’s knowing smirk makes an appearance.

“You know, Rash.” Jesse sets his pillow on the mattress and leans down to Marcus. Soft, warm breath fans Marcus’s ear and it makes something lurch in his stomach. 

“I would let you ruin my make-up in a lot of ways.”

Marcus freezes at that and suddenly he can’t breathe. Holy fuck, Marcus can’t breathe because he’s thinking about messing up Jesse’s make-up in so many dirty ways and _he wants that_. God, he wants that, he wants Jesse so badly. But surely, this is just one of Jesse’s jokes, right? This can’t be real—

“Beans. Beans, you alright?” Jesse sits up on the mattress, giving Marcus some space. Marcus feels himself take a deep, steadying breath. But despite the air inflating Marcus’s lungs, his chest feels heavy with disappointment.

“Hey, relax, Rash.” Jesse brings a soft hand to Marcus’s cheekbone, looking somewhat concerned. “You froze up, wow. It's just a joke. Just banter, innit?” 

Marcus feels something in his chest shatter. His heart probably looks like Jesse’s favorite eye-shadow palette—after Jesse dropped it on the floor and sobbed for a solid few minutes, looking at the crumbled fragments forlornly. 

“Yeah, yeah. Just bants.” Marcus pats Jesse’s arm and puts on a smile that he hopes reaches his eyes (it probably doesn’t). Jesse opens his mouth, closes it. He’s not smiling and he looks like he wants to say something. Maybe he realizes Marcus means it. Maybe he realizes its _not_ just banter for Marcus.

“Well, I’m pretty tired and that. And I got work in the morning, so.” Marcus sits up and pushes off the mattress, “I can probably finish editing that by tomorrow night.”

“That would be sweet, thanks. And thanks for filming with me. The fans love you like, almost more than I do.” Jesse sounds sincere, eyes round and bright. His cheeks look a little pink, even in the dim glow of the vanity’s fairy lights. It must be a new blush he’s trying out.

“Yeah, well, someone has to make sure you don’t post porn on your channel, yeah?”

The assault pillow sails across the room, missing Marcus by at least a meter.

“Great aim, that.”

“Night, Beans.” Jesse rolls his eyes, but the lower half of his face is all gummy smile and messed up lip gloss. Marcus turns away and walks to the door, tries to not think about the shiny, cherry gloss smeared around Jesse’s mouth, how he wants to mess up Jesse’s gloss like that—

“Ow, fuck!” Marcus yelps, hand flying to his forehead. _Of course_ he hit his head on the doorframe. Jesse giggles on the bed behind him. 

“Its times like this when I realize your height is _definitely_ your sexiest feature.”

Marcus whirls around and flips him off before slamming the door shut.

“Love you, too!” Jesse yells through the wall.

_I love you more, idiot._

**Author's Note:**

> Although I have a few plot points planned out, for the most part, I'm writing this fic as I go. With that said, I would love to hear any of your ideas and headcanons for this au! I would also love to hear your feedback on this piece. Feel free to let me know in the comments or message me at delboyanddier on Tumblr!


End file.
